Closing conference of the “Bee Promoted” project

January 5th 2017.

Within final activities of the "BEE Promoted" project, official conference was held on 19th December 2016 in Bihać. During the conference, project results were presented as well as further steps in order to improve honey production and possibilities of a better placement of honey products on the market. A special part of the conference was dedicated to the presentation of the results of the Study of environmental and biological conditions for optimal breeding areas which was created within the project aiming to improve the institutional support to beekeeping enterprises in raising the quality and volume of production and placement of honey and other honey bee products on the market.

The mayor of Bihac, Šuhret Fazlić, during his speech, said that the city administration had recognized beekeeping as an industry that could fairly quickly change the "unemployment image" and that they will continue to support this type of agricultural production in accordance with the city budget capacity.The two-year project, financed from the Instrument of pre-accession assistance funds under the Cross-border Programme Bosnia and Herzegovina - Croatia 2007-2013, had a total value of around 650.000 euros. The project enhanced promotion of the honey bee products on the market through networking of beekeepers in the area of Una-Sana Canton, Posušje and Zadar, and created the basis for cooperation, exchange of knowledge and joint actions to improve this branch of agriculture. The project also enabled establishment of a valuable infrastructure for the provision of new services, including two Laboratories for quality control of honey in Bihać and Zadar as well as the Centre for selective breeding and reproduction of honeybee queen in Bihac and breeding stations in Zadar and Posušje.